When Colorado four years ago mandated that farmers provide more room for hogs and calves raised for veal, this state appeared to be a leader in the humane treatment of animals. It may still be a leader, but events of the past few weeks suggest the rest of the nation is rapidly catching up. After all, Colorado's requirement that a calf have enough room "to stand up, lie down, and turn a...

"the visitor is greeted by a bedlam of squealing, chain rattling, and horrible roaring." -- And this was just Smithfeld's PR department!

"All of these creatures, and billions more across the earth, go to their deaths knowing nothing of life, and nothing of man, except the foul, tortured existence of the factory farm, having never even been outdoors." -- Actually this had zip to do with animals; it was from Newt's little-children-should-work dystopia white papers drafted for his presidential campaign.

Vince is rightly critical of "law-school clinics that hope to persuade courts to recognize animals as persons in order to invest them with legal rights." -- We can wholeheartedly agree with that! Personhood should be reserved exclusively for corporations.

Who cares? Doesn't this seem like the nanny politicians never stop? It is to bad that they don't help the children of this State like they help animals? It is also to bad that they don't care about how the Dems have ran up the deficit and that our Country is well on its way becoming Bankrupt with no one who will bail us out from stupid politcians...

GOD charged Man to "tend the garden" and that means being a good steward to these animals we take so much from. I have no problem eating meat - but there is a right and wrong way of raising and harvesting these animals. You will be held accountable for how you treat this Creation.

The price of meat is kept artificially low due to these mega-farms and their inhumane practices just to squeeze a few extra cents from a pound of bacon. A certain square footage per animal needs to be required for every kind of meat sold in the US. Yes - the price of meat may well double, but that is the cost of doing the right thing. Meat is a luxury and luxuries cost.

If society is stuffing fewer Big Macs down its gullet - maybe higher prices can bring down the morbid obesity issue plaguing the Country at the same time?

Thank you for this wonderful article. Our voices are making a difference, and our actions to reduce the amount of meat we eat, or eliminate it entirely is speaking volumes.Animals are our teachers and embody much more wisdom than man. To reduce their suffering and eventually end it, will bring a higher level of positive healing love energy to the planet for all living beings. The animals have agreed to sacrifice themselves long enough. If we have the intent to end war, than terminating it with the animals is a good start.

Thank you, Mr. Carroll, for your compassionate advocacy for farm animal welfare. Hopefully one day that same compassion will extend to captive wildlife and animals used in research, too. (PETA is right on both counts.) We're not the only animals on the planet, we just act like it.

Here in California we not only torture hogs, we celebrate the fact! The California State Fair (July 12-29) will again have pregnant sows on public display, confined for three straight weeks in "farrowing" crates, unable to move, forced to give birth on a metal grid before noisy and gawking crowds, under bright lights, accompanied by nightly fireworks. Do this to a dog, and they'd put you in jail. Any six-year-old child knows that pregnant animals need peace, quiet and privacy. (I understand that the Colorado State Fair does NOT allow these abusive displays, giving animal welfare priority. Kudos for that.)

We annually consume some 10 BILLION animals in the U.S. (not including fish). Most never see the light of day or set foot to earth. More than 80% of the pharmaceuticals produced in this country are fed to farm animals, often with dire results for the animals themselves and for the people who consume these products over time.

Consider this statement from renowned writer Wendell Berry:

"The principle of confinement in so-called animal science is derived from the industrial version of efficiency. The designers of animal factories appear to have had in mind the example of concentration camps or prisons, the aim of which is to house and feed the greatest numbers in the smallest space at the least expense of money, labor, and attention." --from the book CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation): The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories (Daniel Imhoff, Editor, Earth Aware Press, San Rafael, CA 2010). 400pp of color photos and 30 essays by major writers, including Michael Scully, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Anna Lappe, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Wendell Berry, et al. RECOMMENDED READING.

ericmills wrote:Thank you, Mr. Carroll, for your compassionate advocacy for farm animal welfare. Hopefully one day that same compassion will extend to captive wildlife and animals used in research, too. (PETA is right on both counts.) We're not the only animals on the planet, we just act like it.

Here in California we not only torture hogs, we celebrate the fact!..

...and that's where you lost me.

It is just these sort of hyperbolic statements that turn reasonable people off of animal rights groups. You can raise and harvest animals in a responsible, humane way - THAT should be the focus. Not the scorched Earth "owning a puppy is akin to slavery" approach.

I doubt anyone is "celebrating torturing animals" outside of a dog-fighting ring, but they are putting profits ahead of the welfare of these animals.

If we can tone down the rhetoric, we can do more about bringing attention to how we treat the animals we depend so much upon. THAT should be everyone's goal.

If you are under 30, pay no taxes, have no kids and someone else pays your bills - you probably shouldn't be offering an opinion.

all American wrote:Who cares? Doesn't this seem like the nanny politicians never stop? It is to bad that they don't help the children of this State like they help animals? It is also to bad that they don't care about how the Dems have ran up the deficit and that our Country is well on its way becoming Bankrupt with no one who will bail us out from stupid politcians...

No offense, but I loathe unoriginal comments like this. When it comes to kids vs animals, why does it have to be either/or? Answer: it doesn't. And your assertion that kids aren't being helped to the degree animals are is so inane I won't bother commenting on it.

Finally, you come full circle when you trot out partisan politics. This is about having values as a society; it has nothing to do with Dems vs Repubs. Besides, when you bring up the deficit...you honestly don't see that BOTH parties have created it? If not, google Bush and deficit -- and learn something today!

Those willing to sacrifice freedom in order to gain security will lose both and deserve neither ...Ben Franklin

This article shows that there is indeed a middle ground - that you can care about the welfare of animals without being accused of being an extremist.

The conditions of factory farms are absolutely sickening. As if the suffering of the animals isn't horrid enough, the methods of factory farming necessitate changes in our food that ultimately makes us sick.

I haven't eaten meat for more than 20 years, mostly because I don't like it. But I care deeply about the welfare of animals, and I care about the health of those who eat animals. If you must eat meat, please choose to eat meat that is hormone-free, from animals who were fed the diet they were meant to eat, who were treated humanely in life and death. You will be healthier for it.

Saxon wrote:GOD charged Man to "tend the garden" and that means being a good steward to these animals we take so much from. I have no problem eating meat - but there is a right and wrong way of raising and harvesting these animals. You will be held accountable for how you treat this Creation.

The price of meat is kept artificially low due to these mega-farms and their inhumane practices just to squeeze a few extra cents from a pound of bacon. A certain square footage per animal needs to be required for every kind of meat sold in the US. Yes - the price of meat may well double, but that is the cost of doing the right thing. Meat is a luxury and luxuries cost.

If society is stuffing fewer Big Macs down its gullet - maybe higher prices can bring down the morbid obesity issue plaguing the Country at the same time?

Excellent points. I agree. Junk food and fast food is artificially cheap, causing an inverse proportion of nutrition to dollar. If we stopped subsidizing meat and corn, and raised animals in a way so that they are healthful when consumed, then perhaps our rates of obesity, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes and other linked illnesses would drop. When you are talking about calories on the dollar, it is cheaper to feed a family Happy Meals and Big Macs than to buy fresh produce and fresh meat.

cynthia....... are you serious? "Animals are our teachers and embody much more wisdom than man"?????? I respect animals, have compassion for animals, but they DO NOT embody much more wisdom than man and they definitely aren't teachers, even if we can learn something from them. Eating meat is part of who we are, it goes back thousands of years, it's not going to be eliminated. You can in your own life, it's your choice, but there's so many of us that aren't extreme like that and we choose to eat meat. It's not unhealthy like the rabid, vegetarians would like us to believe........ just eat it in moderation.

Saxon wrote:GOD charged Man to "tend the garden" and that means being a good steward to these animals we take so much from. I have no problem eating meat - but there is a right and wrong way of raising and harvesting these animals. You will be held accountable for how you treat this Creation.

The price of meat is kept artificially low due to these mega-farms and their inhumane practices just to squeeze a few extra cents from a pound of bacon. A certain square footage per animal needs to be required for every kind of meat sold in the US. Yes - the price of meat may well double, but that is the cost of doing the right thing. Meat is a luxury and luxuries cost.

If society is stuffing fewer Big Macs down its gullet - maybe higher prices can bring down the morbid obesity issue plaguing the Country at the same time?

Excellent points. I agree. Junk food and fast food is artificially cheap, causing an inverse proportion of nutrition to dollar. If we stopped subsidizing meat and corn, and raised animals in a way so that they are healthful when consumed, then perhaps our rates of obesity, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes and other linked illnesses would drop. When you are talking about calories on the dollar, it is cheaper to feed a family Happy Meals and Big Macs than to buy fresh produce and fresh meat.

The problem I have with these comments is it assumes agriculture doesn't raise animals in a humane way, or healthy at that. It happens, yes, and particularly with corporate farms, but I know for a fact many ranchers raise their beef on free range, free of hormones, and same with dairy. I laugh when organic dairy claims to be hormone free, as if they have an advantage over the milk a consumer can buy at King Soopers, yet milk is tested before it goes to production and if there's any hormones in it, the milk isn't used. It's only a false selling point for organic milk, to trick consumers to pay more for a product than they have to, and some totally fall for it.

Saxon wrote:GOD charged Man to "tend the garden" and that means being a good steward to these animals we take so much from. I have no problem eating meat - but there is a right and wrong way of raising and harvesting these animals. You will be held accountable for how you treat this Creation.

The price of meat is kept artificially low due to these mega-farms and their inhumane practices just to squeeze a few extra cents from a pound of bacon. A certain square footage per animal needs to be required for every kind of meat sold in the US. Yes - the price of meat may well double, but that is the cost of doing the right thing. Meat is a luxury and luxuries cost.

If society is stuffing fewer Big Macs down its gullet - maybe higher prices can bring down the morbid obesity issue plaguing the Country at the same time?

Excellent points. I agree. Junk food and fast food is artificially cheap, causing an inverse proportion of nutrition to dollar. If we stopped subsidizing meat and corn, and raised animals in a way so that they are healthful when consumed, then perhaps our rates of obesity, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes and other linked illnesses would drop. When you are talking about calories on the dollar, it is cheaper to feed a family Happy Meals and Big Macs than to buy fresh produce and fresh meat.

The problem I have with these comments is it assumes agriculture doesn't raise animals in a humane way, or healthy at that. It happens, yes, and particularly with corporate farms, but I know for a fact many ranchers raise their beef on free range, free of hormones, and same with dairy.

I never said there weren't those kinds of farms. In fact, if you look at my earlier post, you will see that I advocate supporting the kinds of farms and dairies that raise their livestock free range, hormone-free, drug-free, humanely and so on. I'm not sure why you jumped to the conclusion that I made any assumptions to the contrary.

I would gladly stop eating red meat or except it as an expensive luxury food if it meant an end to factory farming. I come from a rural background and can say there is a right way and wrong to go about raising livestock for food. Economies of scale for the sake of cheap beef is immoral, unethical and cruel to livestock.

all American wrote:Who cares? Doesn't this seem like the nanny politicians never stop? It is to bad that they don't help the children of this State like they help animals? It is also to bad that they don't care about how the Dems have ran up the deficit and that our Country is well on its way becoming Bankrupt with no one who will bail us out from stupid politcians...

There would be no need for these "nanny state" regulations if corporate agriculture could be trusted to actually conduct their business with a shred of human integrity. Instead, many of these factory farms have chosen to "raise" animals in absolutely horrific conditions so they can cut costs enough to undercut those who actually feel a moral obligation to raise animals for food in a responsible manner.

I grew up on a small family farm in Iowa, so I've been watching this sort of thing unfold now for much of my 30 years. We used to raise cattle and hogs, but eventually stopped both because the selling prices for beef and pork no longer provided financial opportunity. Artificially depressed prices, driven into the cellar by the, ahem, more "efficient" factory farms, absolutely decimated the small and mid-sized family operations. But hey, at least Mickey D's has a dollar menu, right?

"Who cares, I'm not a farmer, not my problem," you may say. Well, none of lives in a vacuum, and believe it or not, things that affect our nation's food supply most certainly do have an affect on you and everyone you know. Growing up, I watched as family livestock operations disappeared, and corporate factory operations began cropping up. Now, a 300-hog farm doesn't smell like a rose garden, I'll tell you that much, but when the big guys started moving in with 10,000-hog facilities that covered maybe 5x the area, the difference in odor was indescribable. Have you ever set foot in a hog factory? I have. Sorry to ruin your lunch, but the stench of feces is so thick that it coats your throat (yum, right?). Pigs are packed into hot, windowless buildings like a Tokyo subway car, and there's usually a giant dumpster full of carcasses that have died from overheating or some type of disease. Do you like flies? Because you'll find about a billion of them at a factory farm. Of course, these unsanitary conditions manifest themselves in the quality of food that you and I eat on a daily basis. At least now they can blast ammonia through it to get rid of those extra diseases that might have been picked up, so there's that.

Do yourself a favor sometime. Go to a local meat market and pick up a cut of your choice that's been raised by a farm that won't be affected by these "nanny state" regulations because they already raise their animals responsibly. You'll pay for it, but you'll actually feel like you're eating food. The bargain bin meat of today is barely a step above garbage. It's so loaded with fillers and stripped of all its nutrients that you'd have to eat probably twice as much of it to gain the same nourishment as you would get from something that actually came from a healthy animal. Yeah, it's cheap at the register, but you're paying for it with the health of your colon. Eat up!

"Business! Humankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the [...] ocean of my business!" -- Dickens

There are those who have no empathy and who are unconcerned with the inhumane treatment and suffering of other beings. They don't want to make a difference and nothing can be said to change their minds. For the other half of the population, if you are concerned about the welfare of animals, and cannot stomach supporting anymore cruelty; why not consider switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet? The health benefits have been studied and documented. Factory farmed animals are injected with hormones and chemicals; and sometimes washed with ammonia. Since I quit eating meat last year, not only do I have more energy, but I lost weight, my skin problems have cleared up, and I feel better mentally and physically. Just imagine if all concerned citizens followed suit, what a difference we could all make.

This is your second article in a row that I liked! As Saxon said earlier, eating meat is a luxury and so it is OK for meat to be expensive. There have also been umpteen studies that indicate that consuming meat is not good for us. But the fact remains that there will always be people who like and will eat meat (including fish). So when we approach this issue, we should consider balance and the circle of life. If we over-fish a certain species (say Tuna) so much that they go extinct, we endanger the circle of life and endanger our food supplies (~45% of the world's population consumes seafood).

There is an excellent book on this topic: 'The ethics of what we eat' by Peter Singer

And you might want to see this movie 'The Cove' to understand why many people like me refuse to go to Seaworld etc. where they keep dolphins captive. It is gory and makes you wonder what has happened to humans!http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/